The two sisters and an ex-girlfriend of Willem Holleeder have given witness statements to the police about his involvement in gangland murders, the Telegraaf and NRC report on Tuesday.

Holleeder, who was jailed in the 1980s for kidnapping beer magnate Freddie Heineken and served five years in the early 2000s for his part in blackmailing three property tycoons, is due in court on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the murder of underworld figures Kees Houtman and Thomas van der Bijl.

The three women are Sonja and Astrid Holleeder and Sandra Klepper, Holleeder’s ex-girlfriend and widow of the criminal Sam Klepper, who was shot dead in Amsterdam in 2000. Sonja Holleeder’s husband Cor van Hout was murdered in 2003.

According to the two newspapers, the public prosecution office has had their witness statements for two years. They are only now being used because of the new trial. Neither the public prosecutor nor Holleeder’s lawyer would comment.

Choice

Sonja Holleeder told the Telegraaf her brother made her life a misery. ‘He threatened to kill us and made it sound like a favour when he said I could choose which of my children would die first,’ she told the paper.

Sandra Klepper told the Telegraaf that Holleeder is not the charming, cuddly criminal the outside world sees. ‘He is a dangerous psychopath, who constantly betrays and murders people. That spilling of blood must come to an end.’

Astrid Holleeder spoke to the NRC. She said she spent years building a relationship of trust with her brother so she could collect information about him. ‘I played a double game,’ she said. ‘I do not feel good about it, but could do nothing less.’

It is expected that the witness statement will be presented during the trial.